On 2005-03-27 15:36:14 +1000, Larry W4CSC said:

Markus Baertschi wrote in
:

CAN is a properly documented, standard, non-proprietary protocol. It is
well suited for control and data is harsh environments. Much better
than what you metion.



Name 5 items prior to this announcement that uses CAN protocol.....

All Jaguar motor cars. All Volvo motor cars. Holden (Australian GM)
motor cars. All Bosch automotive electronic control modules. Many
different industrila control modules but look at Intel, National and
Philips semiconductors for fully integrated interface chip solutions.
Plus the software drivers for Linix, as well as VME bus interface cards
for CAN bus systems.

Better yet do a Google search on CAN Bus and get a real appreciation of
the technology. What is proprietary as I stated before is the bonehead
data sent over the CAN bus as defined by NMEA and only available by
paying them exhorbitant amounts of money for the complete data
defenitions.

The CAN Bus is the easy part it's the NMEA data that is the problem! It
would also be the same problem if the NMEA had used ethernet. The data
sent over the bus is where the real IP (Intelectual Property) lies.

--
Regards,
John Proctor VK3JP, VKV6789
S/V Chagall